So where have I been?  If I told you, I'd have to kill you.

But to be honest, I've been a whole lot of nowhere.  Trying to forge ahead and seeming only to find myself moving rapidly backwards.  I entered my 30s one week ago today.  A year ago, I was genuinely looking forward to 30.  In a way, I am glad to be here.  Yet sadly, I still feel as though I am no further ahead in life than I was at 21.

I keep looking for ways to patch the holes in what seems to be a rapidly sinking ship.  I feel like I have painted myself into a very dim corner.

Going back to school isn't an option simply because I don't have an income to pay for tuition.  And most of the programs in which I'm interested have requirements that I just don't exactly fulfill.  Not to mention that all of my academic work has been crap (my GPAs suck).

I'm not sure what direction I should take my job search in right now.  Firms seem reluctant to consider my resume  for just about any position, seeing as how responses to my submission have been next to none.  This just in: my application for a job with the county has been accepted and I've been admitted to the Oral Interview stage.  My interview is scheduled for next Tuesday afternoon.  One week to prep, I guess.  ***Edit*** The job is with the County Counsel's Office, in case anyone was wondering.

It's really very frustrating to know what direction you want to go in and being fully incapable or just plain unable to go there or get there quickly enough while trying to avoid fatal career pitfalls.  It ain't easy.  Ain't easy at all.

For those of you waiting to hear:

I was not successful on the February 2007 California Bar Examination. 

No big whoop.  Really! 

It's time that I take a step back, get grounded and try again...next February.  It's gonna be weird not taking it again right away, but I need a break.  I need time to shake the disappointments and bad juju that has built up from past failures.  Use the next six months to wipe the slate clean and start fresh again in December.

Today was my final day at my latest temp job.  Three weeks went by real quick there.  It's not that I was doing anything at all more interesting or exciting.  I was answering phones.  But the people were great and that made all the difference.  Leaving today felt like I had been working there for...much longer than three weeks.  It's just so strange, the connections you can make in such short time periods.

I don't have any other gig lined up just yet.  However, I do have jury duty later this week.  I still hope that I don't even have to report, but it's not like I have anything else to do.  But gas is just so expensive.  It probably costs more to travel to jury duty than you get compensated for serving.  Aye. 

I just got an e-mail from a friend from law school.  She wanted to congratulate me because she saw that I passed the bar exam.

One problem: I haven't seen that I passed the bar.  And won't for over a week.  In fact, if my money were on it, I'd bet it all on not seeing that result for at least another year.

Yet I wonder: Is there some special preview for admitted attorneys around the country that I'm not supposed to know about?

I know, I know.  Wishful thinking.  And I have been doing everything in my power to keep from getting my hopes up.

But c'mon.  What do you say to that??

So my dear Friend, if you're reading this I did not pass the bar yet.  And California is wicked hard.

Some friends of ours exchanged vows this weekend.  It was the best (albeit the only) wedding I've been to all year!  It was held at a swanky country club across town, but the event itself was very classy and not as overdone as one would have perhaps expected based on its locale.

Yours truly was expecting to wear one of two dresses that I already own.  One that was my wedding standard in 2003 and the other that I bought for the gala that Fella and I attended last fall.  I was fine with the idea until my girlfriends both got new dresses.  Each of the cute vareity, of course.  So I felt my options were either overly plain or already done, but financially practical.  However, when I went to pickup one of the dresses being altered, I was fated to wear another.  It was super cute, not too pricey, and the last one on the rack.  In my size.  Hello, meant to be much?!

I also splurged on some cute red peep toe heels from Targ.  Likely the tallest heels I have ever and will ever own.  But I must say, the height advantage those shoes gave me were key to my snag of the bouquet out of thin air.  I had to be well over six feet in those bad mammer jammers.  And the bouquet was coming right at me, or at least right over me, so how could I not just reach up my arm and pick it right out of the sky.  Fella immediately grabbed the nearest bottle of wine to him and chugged.

It's the first time since I was a little girl that I actually wanted to catch the bouquet.

I've got the guy, I've got the bouquet (not that I needed it); now all I need is a job and the ring should follow!

...my car has to hit the shop again. 

On my way home the other day, the brakes decided to act up.  Which is never a good thing.  So another $350-600 dollars into the money guzzler.

I need a job. 

Bad.

*****Edit*****
I got my car back last night.  They called me right as I was getting out of work, so I was kinda freaked out that it wasn't going to be ready.  And it was the former, rather than the latter price.  Thankfully. 

Forgot to mention another odd (or is it an end?)  I was recognized.

Fella and I went into The Evil Empire to print out our friends' wedding registry and go somewhere else to buy what they wanted.  I walked straight to the back of the store to the registry kiosk, taking my sunglasses off only when I thought I was safe.  Only I was so not safe.

The manager who was tapped to downsize me back in December was there.  As she walked towards the back room, she treated me as a normal customer giving me a trite, obligatory greeting and continued on.  Two steps later she stopped in her tracks, backed up into my peripheral view and stared a moment before saying, "Zesty?"  I glared indignance at her and merely said, "Yep," and off she went on her merry way.

Immediately after, I thought I might have said something like: "Hey, thanks soooo much for setting me up with a nest egg for a couple of months."  I wonder if she even knows what happened.

While grocery shopping yesterday, I got the chattiest checker ever at the local Trader Joe's.  I'll call him Slim.  Not because his name needs to be changed to protect the innocent, but because that was his name.  At least according to his nametag.  I wasn't quite sure if it he was naturally chatty or if it was chemically induced.  Afterall. his eyes were a lighter shade of bloodshot.

I think I know where my label maker is.  Only I'm too lazy and tired to check there.

You know, it's a really small world.  There are two other gals in the office where I'm temping that also wen tto my unalmamater.  Not only that, but we figured out today that I have a law school friend in common with one of them.  Which I guess wouldn't be weird if I had gone somewhere local.  Or somewhere big.  But neither is the case.  You know what I'm talking about.

And thankfully, the folks in the office are just as nice this week as they were last. It wasn't just a front to make me think that the entire assignment was going to be pleasant.  It actually is going to be pleasant.

I'm on an all out shoe hunt.  I have a wedding to attend this weekend and am wearing a dress that I already have.  Which is black (which equals dull).  So I thought I'd spice it up with a pop of color in the way of bright strappy shoes.  It's definitely an uphill battle.  I suppose I'll just have to compromise at some point.

I'm getting a lot of primping done this week.  I have my regularly scheduled hair appointment on Thursday.  I think I'm taking my hair a skosh shorter than I've been keeping it lately.  And of course, getting my highlights retouched. 

Then Saturday I have a date with girlfriends to get our nails done for the wedding.  I can't remember the last mani/pedi I had.

Sometime in between I'd like to get my brows waxed.  I caved on our trip to the Central Coast and took tweezers to them.  But I haven't touched them since, so they are primed to go!

I've realized this week why I used to be obsessed with reading celebrity gossip.  It's taken all the strength I can muster (ok, maybe not quite that much) but I've kept the urge to check IMDb at bay.  It's not been easy.  I've resorted to reading the "Best Of" on Craigslist.  Which may be equally as voyeuristic as reading tabloids, but it seems more innocent because of the anonymity of it all.

Boredom is hard.

I've been getting lots of e-mail lately.  Not that it's really anything to write home about, except for that the e-mail I've been getting?  It's from the future.  2037 to be precise.  So I guess the world is still turning 30 years from now, thank goodness.  The bad news is that all of my e-mail from 2037 is complete spamtastic drivel.