I am a child of the 1980's. Wait, that's not right. I grew up in the 1970's and 1980's in a time of typewriters and cursive script. That's better.
I have never been technologically savvy so when I recently had to make a podcast reading of one of my stories for an online literary journal I was flummoxed. The editor sent an email, but the instructions sounded like some computer kid's ramblings in cypher code. It made my brain hurt. Thus, I procrastinated. The recording of the piece wasn't due for a couple of weeks, I had plenty of time.
Whining "help me" and "can you do it for me?" to my husband didn't help either. My husband has been working six days a week and has had a persistent cold. He ignored my pleas.
On the Friday the mp3 was due, I sat in my office at lunch trying to download the app on my iphone. Apple kept rejecting my password.
"Fuck," I yelled at the picture of Sid Vicious which hangs on my wall unframed (it is a Sex Pistols poster dammit, to frame it would be blashphemous). Lucky for me, cussing out loud in our office is no big deal. I sometimes find myself muttering a string of filthy expletives in an angry tirade as I walk down the hall. No one even notices. I have found a home.
Apple rejected my password a second and third time and wasn't allowing me to reset. I had wanted to make my recording in the quietness of an office with a shut door, but I would have to do this at home.
That Sunday evening, I was watching TV waiting for Dexter to come on and realized my mp3 was two days overdue. "Fuck," I yelled at my husband jumping out of bed. "It's late, it's late," I said sounding like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
Apple finally prompted my password reset and I downloaded the app on my phone. By this time, I was downstairs and could hear the rat a tat tat of my husband's Call of Duty game upstairs.
I started recording my story with iaudition reading off my iPad. It was not pretty. I kept on jumbling my words. The dogs started barking. On my tenth try, I did a decent recording of the whole story but halfway through a car alarm went off outside. I played the recording and debated whether I should just send it and get this whole thing over with. It wasn't that bad, I thought to myself. The car alarm gave it a surreal feel.
No. I had to start over. And over. And over.
About twenty tries in, I was halfway through another reading and it was going well. I had a rhythm.
"What's for dinner?" Adrian yelled downstairs in a nasally tinged voice.
"Fuck," I yelled back at him. "I'm in my recording studio. Shut up!"
"What's for dinner?" he yelled again. "I'm sick."
I am not good at explaining how to go screw yourself when stressed so I just ignored him until his pleas for dinner went away.
Maybe I would have to learn to use the editing feature on iaudition.
I decided to try one last time and finally, bingo! Even though I stumbled on a couple words, I was pleased. It sounded dramatic and there was no car alarm in the background. My dogs sat like a quiet audience and watched me while I read. Golden Ponyboy. Golden.
I took it upstairs and Adrian and I listened to it together. I almost fell asleep to the lull of my own words. Was I dreaming? Was that really me? Did I really write that story?
It was a dream, my dream, come true in that digital audio file on my iPad just waiting to be heard.
Panorama of San Bernardino
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
On meeting David Sedaris and other celebrity interactions
I have had bad luck with meeting celebrities. One of two things happen. I go all Lucille Ball on them and become a blithering mess and embarrass myself. Or, I shut down like a human clam and say nothing and stare at them in awed silence.
Last night when I met David Sedairs, the latter occurred and I became a mute. After his show in Rancho Mirage, I grabbed a spot in the book signing line while my sister Jackie bought our books. Jackie went first and David talked to her like an old friend admiring her shawl and talking with her about her experience with teenagers as a Special Ed teacher. Jackie told him her students loved the audio book of "Catcher in the Rye" read by J.D. Salinger himself. "That exists?" David said in a sweet whisper as he brought out a little notebook and wrote something down.
Jackie introduced me in the only way she knows how, "This is my twin." David smiled and I choked. Words caught in my throat.
I didn't tell David how hard his stories made me laugh or that I started writing memoir after reading one of his books. I also didn't tell him that I describe my memoir as the book that would result if David Sedaris and Judy Blume had a book baby. I didn't make him chuckle or even notice me.
When signing his book for me ("holidays on ice"), David took out a marker and started drawing a candy cane in red. I mumbled "candy cane...Santa land", an admittedly confusing reference to his famous story called the SantaLand Diaries which details his experiences working as a Christmas elf at Macy's. David paid me no mind.
About five years ago, I met another of my idols, George Stephanopoulos, at a corporate law event. That time, I drank too much and tried too hard and freaked him out by telling him we had coffee together every Sunday morning. I thought it was funny because "This Week" comes on at 8 a.m. every Sunday. From the look on his face in our picture together and the fact that he is pulling away from me, he must have thought I was his celebrity stalker. Which is a ridiculous assumption because if I was gonna stalk anyone, it would be Morrissey (who is number one on my must meet list).
Something similar happened with Mr. T at a party in Vegas in the 1990's. When I saw Mr. T, I started jumping up and down clapping my hands singing "There's Mr. T".
To me, Mr. T is a 1980's icon. As a child, I loved watching "The A Team" and Mr. T is in my favorite episode of Different Strokes.
To show my appreciation, I followed Mr. T around the party repeating, "I pity the fool" which I am sure he had heard before but cut me a break, it was an all you can drink of premium liquor kind of party. I took picture after picture with Mr. T and after a while, he suggested in a gentle voice that I stop pestering him. I stumbled back to Adrian who was looking on in horror and rubbing his temples.
And, due to my top shelf drunkenness (in those days my favored drink was a B52 on the rocks, a sweet mix of Grand Marnier, Vodka and Bailey's), I lost my camera with all of my pictures of myself and Mr. T.
Which is worse: embarrassing yourself in a memorable manner or not saying anything at all?
I no longer drink so maybe what shut me up with David Sedaris was the lack of my magic elixir. I suppose I will have to get used to it and get some real balls.
And if I ever meet another of my writing heroes, I plan on telling them just how much they move me in no uncertain terms. I am a writer too after all.
Last night when I met David Sedairs, the latter occurred and I became a mute. After his show in Rancho Mirage, I grabbed a spot in the book signing line while my sister Jackie bought our books. Jackie went first and David talked to her like an old friend admiring her shawl and talking with her about her experience with teenagers as a Special Ed teacher. Jackie told him her students loved the audio book of "Catcher in the Rye" read by J.D. Salinger himself. "That exists?" David said in a sweet whisper as he brought out a little notebook and wrote something down.
Jackie introduced me in the only way she knows how, "This is my twin." David smiled and I choked. Words caught in my throat.
I didn't tell David how hard his stories made me laugh or that I started writing memoir after reading one of his books. I also didn't tell him that I describe my memoir as the book that would result if David Sedaris and Judy Blume had a book baby. I didn't make him chuckle or even notice me.
When signing his book for me ("holidays on ice"), David took out a marker and started drawing a candy cane in red. I mumbled "candy cane...Santa land", an admittedly confusing reference to his famous story called the SantaLand Diaries which details his experiences working as a Christmas elf at Macy's. David paid me no mind.
About five years ago, I met another of my idols, George Stephanopoulos, at a corporate law event. That time, I drank too much and tried too hard and freaked him out by telling him we had coffee together every Sunday morning. I thought it was funny because "This Week" comes on at 8 a.m. every Sunday. From the look on his face in our picture together and the fact that he is pulling away from me, he must have thought I was his celebrity stalker. Which is a ridiculous assumption because if I was gonna stalk anyone, it would be Morrissey (who is number one on my must meet list).
Something similar happened with Mr. T at a party in Vegas in the 1990's. When I saw Mr. T, I started jumping up and down clapping my hands singing "There's Mr. T".
To me, Mr. T is a 1980's icon. As a child, I loved watching "The A Team" and Mr. T is in my favorite episode of Different Strokes.
To show my appreciation, I followed Mr. T around the party repeating, "I pity the fool" which I am sure he had heard before but cut me a break, it was an all you can drink of premium liquor kind of party. I took picture after picture with Mr. T and after a while, he suggested in a gentle voice that I stop pestering him. I stumbled back to Adrian who was looking on in horror and rubbing his temples.
And, due to my top shelf drunkenness (in those days my favored drink was a B52 on the rocks, a sweet mix of Grand Marnier, Vodka and Bailey's), I lost my camera with all of my pictures of myself and Mr. T.
Which is worse: embarrassing yourself in a memorable manner or not saying anything at all?
I no longer drink so maybe what shut me up with David Sedaris was the lack of my magic elixir. I suppose I will have to get used to it and get some real balls.
And if I ever meet another of my writing heroes, I plan on telling them just how much they move me in no uncertain terms. I am a writer too after all.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Giving Thanks
Thanksgiving has always been a stressful day for me. Growing up, holidays always seemed to end badly. I would wake up on Thanksgiving with a sick feeling in my stomach waiting for the usual bomb to drop.
Something bad always happened. My parents fought, my sisters and I fought with each other or with my parents, things were thrown, cuss words were used and someone ended up crying in the bathroom. Those fighting type holidays are ingrained in me and the memories of those times is difficult to forget and too easy to perpetuate.
Until recently, I would try and sabotage my holidays by baiting Adrian to fight with me. My modus operandi was to scream and yell over anything, usually something petty. Adrian, who has taken twenty years of this foolishness, ignores it. If fighting was the soundtrack of my childhood holidays, then the soundtrack of my holidays with Adrian have been more of an instrumental (at least on his part).
My family and I have had mixed results with holidays as adults. Last year, Annie threw my twin sister Jackie and I a birthday party which was almost ruined when Jackie and I fought over what time she would arrive to help set up. Jackie and I screamed at each other as my mom paced and swore to herself in the front yard. Annie was crying and upset. Jackie and I resolved it within an hour, but the fight seemed to cast a shadow over the day that was all too familiar.
Last year, our Christmas Eve celebration seemed different. In a Mantz family first, no one fought, screamed or yelled. It was liberating to start a new holiday tradition of peace and goodwill toward one another.
This Thanksgiving, Adrian and I are taking a break from hosting. I met my sister Jackie for breakfast this morning. Jackie was sad that we are not spending Thanksgiving together this year which she expressed to me. Then she told me in a sweet voice how nice it was to have breakfast together. I stopped myself from saying something sarcastic because I knew she meant it. Sincerely.
And she had that same earnest look in her eyes that she always had when we were little. Looking at her face, I felt a stirring in my chest. It was the same kind of feeling that the Christmas Grinch must have felt when his heart started to melt.
Today I am giving thanks for my family and the goodwill we have tried hard to create with one another. The ice is thawing and I am hopeful for the future. I love you.
Something bad always happened. My parents fought, my sisters and I fought with each other or with my parents, things were thrown, cuss words were used and someone ended up crying in the bathroom. Those fighting type holidays are ingrained in me and the memories of those times is difficult to forget and too easy to perpetuate.
Until recently, I would try and sabotage my holidays by baiting Adrian to fight with me. My modus operandi was to scream and yell over anything, usually something petty. Adrian, who has taken twenty years of this foolishness, ignores it. If fighting was the soundtrack of my childhood holidays, then the soundtrack of my holidays with Adrian have been more of an instrumental (at least on his part).
My family and I have had mixed results with holidays as adults. Last year, Annie threw my twin sister Jackie and I a birthday party which was almost ruined when Jackie and I fought over what time she would arrive to help set up. Jackie and I screamed at each other as my mom paced and swore to herself in the front yard. Annie was crying and upset. Jackie and I resolved it within an hour, but the fight seemed to cast a shadow over the day that was all too familiar.
Last year, our Christmas Eve celebration seemed different. In a Mantz family first, no one fought, screamed or yelled. It was liberating to start a new holiday tradition of peace and goodwill toward one another.
This Thanksgiving, Adrian and I are taking a break from hosting. I met my sister Jackie for breakfast this morning. Jackie was sad that we are not spending Thanksgiving together this year which she expressed to me. Then she told me in a sweet voice how nice it was to have breakfast together. I stopped myself from saying something sarcastic because I knew she meant it. Sincerely.
And she had that same earnest look in her eyes that she always had when we were little. Looking at her face, I felt a stirring in my chest. It was the same kind of feeling that the Christmas Grinch must have felt when his heart started to melt.
Today I am giving thanks for my family and the goodwill we have tried hard to create with one another. The ice is thawing and I am hopeful for the future. I love you.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Game Time
From a young age, Dad taught us all the card games you can imagine (and some you have probably never heard of). His favorites were rummy, canasta (and double deck canasta), big casino/little casino and others. Dad was a very good teacher and patiently explained the rules. He would always say after his explanation, "Just play, you can learn as you go along."
Our family ritual was the weekly rummy game with my Dad and my two sisters. It was usually on a Friday night because the game would go late. Rummy is played for points and our games would get up to the thousands and last multiple nights. The older I got, the more I noticed how the winning point cutoff depended on how Dad was faring point wise.
For those of you who don't know, a "rummy" is when a player discards a playable card. If one of us girls committed such a grievous error, Dad would be waiting to pounce. He would slap his hand down on the table and bellow, "Rummy!” My sisters and I would jump out of our chairs at the kitchen table.
Sometimes, we would have to stop because one of us would be yawning at the table. Other times, Mom would get home from waiting tables around ten or eleven and we would still be playing.
"Time to stop girls. I am gonna make your mom something to eat," Dad would say. My sisters and I would groan, but Dad would pick up the scoresheet and put it in the drawer saving it for the next game night.
The memories of our card nights are so palatable and real that I can almost imagine myself there. I have no patience and it amazes me to think that Dad enjoyed spending his nights playing card games with his three little girls. I don't remember any annoyance or weariness around us during the card games.
There is no idealization here. If he could have, I know Dad probably would have been at the bar with his friends sitting on a bar stool, his glass waving in the air. But, Mom had to work and Dad always came home to watch us.
Is that what love is? Because when I think of those card games, that's the feeling I get. Dad, my sisters and I, the kitchen table, and a feeling of safety and warmth.
Yes, that is love.
Our family ritual was the weekly rummy game with my Dad and my two sisters. It was usually on a Friday night because the game would go late. Rummy is played for points and our games would get up to the thousands and last multiple nights. The older I got, the more I noticed how the winning point cutoff depended on how Dad was faring point wise.
For those of you who don't know, a "rummy" is when a player discards a playable card. If one of us girls committed such a grievous error, Dad would be waiting to pounce. He would slap his hand down on the table and bellow, "Rummy!” My sisters and I would jump out of our chairs at the kitchen table.
Sometimes, we would have to stop because one of us would be yawning at the table. Other times, Mom would get home from waiting tables around ten or eleven and we would still be playing.
"Time to stop girls. I am gonna make your mom something to eat," Dad would say. My sisters and I would groan, but Dad would pick up the scoresheet and put it in the drawer saving it for the next game night.
The memories of our card nights are so palatable and real that I can almost imagine myself there. I have no patience and it amazes me to think that Dad enjoyed spending his nights playing card games with his three little girls. I don't remember any annoyance or weariness around us during the card games.
There is no idealization here. If he could have, I know Dad probably would have been at the bar with his friends sitting on a bar stool, his glass waving in the air. But, Mom had to work and Dad always came home to watch us.
Is that what love is? Because when I think of those card games, that's the feeling I get. Dad, my sisters and I, the kitchen table, and a feeling of safety and warmth.
Yes, that is love.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Road Trip
Today I have an appointment regarding my fertility. A forty something professional woman trying to get pregnant is a cliche I know, but here I am.
We waited too long to try and maybe the time has passed. "Those are negative thoughts, you have to think positive," my younger sister Annie told me when I expressed such feelings to her. "Read Joyce Myers," she counseled. She has kids and seems to think I can will it into reality.
There are so many things I want to do in the next year. I would love to finish my book. I will finish my book. It will be published and be a huge success. I can picture the book party. I am standing up reading before a large group of people and barely shaking at all. The Smiths are playing in the background. Adrian, my sisters and my mom are in the front row. The initial reviews for my book are splendid.
Why can I picture the book but not picture myself pregnant? Is it because I have less control over getting pregnant other than just trying (and we've been trying)? Or is it because I don't want to be disappointed?
I have written about this issue before but until now it was always theoretical. Now that I have followed through and finally made an appointment, it feels real and scarier.
What if they tell me it is an impossibility? What will I do? Buy another shih-tzu? Adopt? Cry?
It seems as if all I have are questions and no answers. And, as much as I want to sleep away the appointment, like I slept away my senior year of high school, I am getting out of bed, pulling on some clothes and getting in my car to drive to the appointment.
I will just wait and see what happens. If life is all about the journey then I am ready.
Hopefully, I don't run out of gas.
We waited too long to try and maybe the time has passed. "Those are negative thoughts, you have to think positive," my younger sister Annie told me when I expressed such feelings to her. "Read Joyce Myers," she counseled. She has kids and seems to think I can will it into reality.
There are so many things I want to do in the next year. I would love to finish my book. I will finish my book. It will be published and be a huge success. I can picture the book party. I am standing up reading before a large group of people and barely shaking at all. The Smiths are playing in the background. Adrian, my sisters and my mom are in the front row. The initial reviews for my book are splendid.
Why can I picture the book but not picture myself pregnant? Is it because I have less control over getting pregnant other than just trying (and we've been trying)? Or is it because I don't want to be disappointed?
I have written about this issue before but until now it was always theoretical. Now that I have followed through and finally made an appointment, it feels real and scarier.
What if they tell me it is an impossibility? What will I do? Buy another shih-tzu? Adopt? Cry?
It seems as if all I have are questions and no answers. And, as much as I want to sleep away the appointment, like I slept away my senior year of high school, I am getting out of bed, pulling on some clothes and getting in my car to drive to the appointment.
I will just wait and see what happens. If life is all about the journey then I am ready.
Hopefully, I don't run out of gas.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Junior High and Dolly
Junior high was an interesting time. Interesting in the way one says interesting when they have no other adjective to use. I attended Imperial Junior High in Ontario which was about three blocks from our house on Glenn Street. Our house was on a cul de sac across from the Section 8 apartments where most of my friends lived.
My parents bought the house new. Within a couple of years they would lose it to a bank when my dad quit his truck driving job and mortgaged it to buy a bar. As my mom always said, "a drinker owning a bar is a disaster waiting to happen." And eventually, that disaster did happen and my parents lost the house.
But in Junior High, my mom and dad still owned the house. It was the early 1980's and we had just transferred from St. George's, a parochial school in Ontario that we had attended for two years. My mom couldn't afford the tuition or the uniforms any more so we started seventh grade back at public school.
I was happy because my best friend Melinda and I would be reunited again. Duran Duran and Wham were all the rage and I remember my outfit on the first day of school: black leggings and a florescent pink oversized sweatshirt like the one in Wham's video. My mom bought my twin sister Jackie the same sweater only in yellow and I begged Jackie not to wear it the first day.
The first day of school I realized that Melinda and I didn't have any classes together. All of my classes were GATE classes. I remember Melinda commenting on it and I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "We will still eat lunch together."
My first class was English and I sat in the front of the class as usual. A girl sat down next to me and said, "Hi, my name is Dolly, what's yours?" in a thick Southern twang. Dolly and I became fast friends. She had moved from Arkansas and lived with her parents in the condos next door to Imperial Junior High. She used the word "fixing" as in "I am fixing to turn on the lights."
Dolly had curly blond hair and she wore her bangs over her face on a slant. "It's new ro", she told me. I pretended I knew what she meant, but later she explained that new ro was short for the New Romantic music phase. I remember that she wore the coolest white overalls that had splashes of florescent faux paint splattered all over them.
We used to go to Dolly's house at lunch and watch movies on the cable channel. Her room was covered in pictures of Duran Duran and we would always argue over who would get to marry John Taylor. Simon Le Bon was always our second choice.
Dolly and I were close. I would spend the night at her house and her mom would get us take out. Her mom's bathroom cabinet was filled with medication for her "issues". "She takes Valium to calm her nerves," Dolly told me one day her voice twanging on the word nerves.
My friendship with Dolly eventually faded. I wonder what happened to her. Did she move back to the South? She didn't go on to Chaffey with us. Where is she now?
It is interesting to go back in time and dredge up memories. It can also be frustrating.
Dolly's story is one that that I don't have an ending to. In junior high she was a huge part of my existence and now she is just a somewhat vague recollection.
If I had to imagine an ending, it would go something like this. Dolly moved back to the South and graduated from high school early and went on to study film at NYU. She changed her name when she became a famous filmmaker.
Fiction can be liberating. I wish memoir was that easy.
My parents bought the house new. Within a couple of years they would lose it to a bank when my dad quit his truck driving job and mortgaged it to buy a bar. As my mom always said, "a drinker owning a bar is a disaster waiting to happen." And eventually, that disaster did happen and my parents lost the house.
But in Junior High, my mom and dad still owned the house. It was the early 1980's and we had just transferred from St. George's, a parochial school in Ontario that we had attended for two years. My mom couldn't afford the tuition or the uniforms any more so we started seventh grade back at public school.
I was happy because my best friend Melinda and I would be reunited again. Duran Duran and Wham were all the rage and I remember my outfit on the first day of school: black leggings and a florescent pink oversized sweatshirt like the one in Wham's video. My mom bought my twin sister Jackie the same sweater only in yellow and I begged Jackie not to wear it the first day.
The first day of school I realized that Melinda and I didn't have any classes together. All of my classes were GATE classes. I remember Melinda commenting on it and I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "We will still eat lunch together."
My first class was English and I sat in the front of the class as usual. A girl sat down next to me and said, "Hi, my name is Dolly, what's yours?" in a thick Southern twang. Dolly and I became fast friends. She had moved from Arkansas and lived with her parents in the condos next door to Imperial Junior High. She used the word "fixing" as in "I am fixing to turn on the lights."
Dolly had curly blond hair and she wore her bangs over her face on a slant. "It's new ro", she told me. I pretended I knew what she meant, but later she explained that new ro was short for the New Romantic music phase. I remember that she wore the coolest white overalls that had splashes of florescent faux paint splattered all over them.
We used to go to Dolly's house at lunch and watch movies on the cable channel. Her room was covered in pictures of Duran Duran and we would always argue over who would get to marry John Taylor. Simon Le Bon was always our second choice.
Dolly and I were close. I would spend the night at her house and her mom would get us take out. Her mom's bathroom cabinet was filled with medication for her "issues". "She takes Valium to calm her nerves," Dolly told me one day her voice twanging on the word nerves.
My friendship with Dolly eventually faded. I wonder what happened to her. Did she move back to the South? She didn't go on to Chaffey with us. Where is she now?
It is interesting to go back in time and dredge up memories. It can also be frustrating.
Dolly's story is one that that I don't have an ending to. In junior high she was a huge part of my existence and now she is just a somewhat vague recollection.
If I had to imagine an ending, it would go something like this. Dolly moved back to the South and graduated from high school early and went on to study film at NYU. She changed her name when she became a famous filmmaker.
Fiction can be liberating. I wish memoir was that easy.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
The Importance of Being Good
A couple of years ago, I read a book by Nick Hornby titled "How to be Good". The story centers around the conversion of a man from angry to good. There is a spirtual healer and a lot of other issues involved (that don't matter for this story), but it was the concept that was most interesting.
This morning I was thinking of how hard it is to be good. I equate good with nice and maybe that is the problem. Maybe they are not the same thing.
Truth be told, I am not a very nice person. I am bossy, irritable and I love to get up on a soapbox and voice my opinion even when unwanted. My sister Annie calls me on it sometimes.
"Don't use your lawyer voice on me", Annie will say in her usual diplomatic but forceful way (yes, reader, she is an Aquarian). She knows I can't help it.
My husband, after twenty years, also realizes my nature. And, when I am (insert air quote here) nice, he is perplexed. "Why are you being so nice?", he will ask in his usual droll Piscean manner. "Are you ill?"
My clients seem to understand me as well. I work hard for them and they seem to get it. Lawyers can be nice and not be good. They can promise you the moon and then screw you over (legally speaking). I pride myself on never giving up. "I am not Harry Potter," I sometimes tell people. Yet, I always try to work some magic.
We public defenders get a bad rap. We make next to nothing relatively speaking, have large caseloads and are called "public pretenders". It is an uphill battle to get our clients to trust us.
My friend Tracy also understands me. Tracy has known me since high school and she is so nice that she would probably say I was nice if I asked her. But, I would know she was just being nice as opposed to truthful because bitch can be an understatement when I am in one of my moods.
The question is whether it is worth it for me to try to be nicer. I will never be nice, but perhaps I could be less gruff, more patient and less bossy. Is it possible? The answer: possible but not probable.
The problem is that I like myself, bossy, annoying and opinionated person that I am. I don't want to be a doormat, I think (actually I know) my opinion matters and I hate waiting.
It is JEM's world people and you are all just living in it.
This morning I was thinking of how hard it is to be good. I equate good with nice and maybe that is the problem. Maybe they are not the same thing.
Truth be told, I am not a very nice person. I am bossy, irritable and I love to get up on a soapbox and voice my opinion even when unwanted. My sister Annie calls me on it sometimes.
"Don't use your lawyer voice on me", Annie will say in her usual diplomatic but forceful way (yes, reader, she is an Aquarian). She knows I can't help it.
My husband, after twenty years, also realizes my nature. And, when I am (insert air quote here) nice, he is perplexed. "Why are you being so nice?", he will ask in his usual droll Piscean manner. "Are you ill?"
My clients seem to understand me as well. I work hard for them and they seem to get it. Lawyers can be nice and not be good. They can promise you the moon and then screw you over (legally speaking). I pride myself on never giving up. "I am not Harry Potter," I sometimes tell people. Yet, I always try to work some magic.
We public defenders get a bad rap. We make next to nothing relatively speaking, have large caseloads and are called "public pretenders". It is an uphill battle to get our clients to trust us.
My friend Tracy also understands me. Tracy has known me since high school and she is so nice that she would probably say I was nice if I asked her. But, I would know she was just being nice as opposed to truthful because bitch can be an understatement when I am in one of my moods.
The question is whether it is worth it for me to try to be nicer. I will never be nice, but perhaps I could be less gruff, more patient and less bossy. Is it possible? The answer: possible but not probable.
The problem is that I like myself, bossy, annoying and opinionated person that I am. I don't want to be a doormat, I think (actually I know) my opinion matters and I hate waiting.
It is JEM's world people and you are all just living in it.
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