Paycheck Envy

In each of the past two days I have had lunch with law school colleagues. Each has done well for himself and seem pretty content.

James is a partner in his firm already. Okay, so his dad's a founding partner, so there may be a slight upper hand there, but still, he's a partner. He's married and living in Annapolis. Talk about a hellish commute. She doesn't really work right now. I can only imagine how much a house in Annapolis costs, on top of the fact that he's supporting a spouse who brings in no income.

Aaron, who was married by the time we started law school, is now divorced. He's moved around from Wisconsin somewhere to Chicago and now is back in DC. He's with a big firm here which is undoubtedly paying him quite well, because he had a $40 lunch. (Mine was $8, plus a $2 cup of tea.) Oh, and did I mention he's selling his 2BR/2BA condo in Georgetown because he bought a bigger place near Eastern Market? (See this previous post about how I've actually looked at houses in the Eastern Market area -- and can't possibly afford them.)

A few weeks ago, my friend Mira held her 35th birthday party at a swanky restaurant downtown. She rented out the "party room" in the back area of the bar, with a full open bar and hors d'ouvres circulating regularly (though perhaps not as regularly as they should have been given the aforementioned full open bar). I can't imagine how much such a party would cost. But seeing as I spent $80 there for dinner the one time I've been, reserving a room can't be cheap.

How is it that I've somehow managed to surround myself with people who all earn more than I do? They seem to have decent lives, they do very well for themselves, they probably have more saved up than I've ever seen attached to my name, and I barely have a cushion should I lose my job tomorrow.

Okay okay, yes, I should be happy that I make a decent living for myself and I'm not starving and own my condo (small that it is), but Aaron's talking about how he's invested $150K of his own money to start some housing construction business in Houston and is looking for investors. If I had $150K of my own ... heck I don't know what I'd do with it, but starting up a whole new business probably isn't want I'd be doing.

Even my other friends who aren't big-shot lawyers seem to earn more than I do. These are people who decline European vacations not because they don't have the money to plop down, but because they don't want to take the vacation time. These are people who think weekend jaunts cross-continent are fun. These are people whose idea of bargain hunting is finding lodging in Tahoe for under $1000. These are people with more frequent flier miles to their names than I accumulated flying back and forth from Philadelphia to Hawai'i for college breaks.

I was born into a middle-class family. We never had all that much money. They say you can't miss what you never had, but you know what? You sure can covet what you never had. I suppose it's cleaner for all involved to instead call it "setting a goal." My goal is to somehow or another accumulate more wealth. Without compromising my social life or my personal beliefs.

Wish me luck.

Competition in Bed

Continuing the ongoing thread of "Wow, I am so pathetic" lines of thought:

Last night I had the strangest dream. I wish the dream had involved me sailing away to China in a little boat, only to meet someone who had to get their laundry clean, but it does not.

The characters in this odd dreamscape: Mark, my friend in Seattle; an Unnamed Sexy Man (kinda reminded me of Anderson Cooper, but it wasn't him, alas); and a third man with whom I know USM has been flirting all night. USM and the third man are not "together" -- yet -- but if all goes according to USM's plan, they will be. I find USM incredibly sexy and nice, so of course, I'm kinda crushing on him as well.

I forget the circumstances leading up to the events, but the setting basically is this: Mark, USM, USM's Object of Interest, and I have somehow been brought together for an evening. It could have been a party, or perhaps we were all volunteering for an event together and were chatting during down time. In any event, we were all gradually getting to know each other over the course of a few hours. (I don't know if I knew Mark in my dream, or if he was just some random avatar of Joe Everyman.)

At some point, USM kisses his OOI. This does not make me happy, but I'm cool because, frankly, I'm used to not being anyone's OOI. The dream takes a turn, however, when Mark expresses his interest in USM as well, and somehow draws him into a kiss of their own. This is remarkable in and of itself as Mark (in real life) has a boyfriend of several years. This, of course, annoys me.

So, being the upfront and ballsy guy that I am (literally, in my dreams), I decide it's my turn. I take USM's hand and gently direct him towards me, where I have every intention of making out with him. Unfortunately, even in my dream he turns his cheek to me so that I don't make contact with his lips, but the Forceful Me takes a hold of his face and directs it back to me so that I actually succeed in making lip contact with him. And he doesn't resist, and in fact, it's quite nice.

I don't know what happened next. I don't know if that's because I woke up, or just because I dreamed on but don't have a recollection of it.

Even in my dreams, I play second fiddle. Something's not right.

Exam Anxiety

First, let me be clear: I've been out of school for a loooooong time now. Midterms and finals are a thing of the past, forever banished to the annals of my personal history, like Kathleen Wong, the girl I thought was "cute" in the second grade.

From time to time I have this strange anxiety dream about exams, though. There are slight variations on the theme, but at its core, the dream is the same. I'm told others have similar dreams all the time.

Me, I'm running through the crowded hallways of school. I usually don't label it as high school or college until some later point in the dream, but I'm running because I know I don't want to be late for the exam. Problem is, I know that I don't know anything about the subject matter on the test. I suddenly realize that I had never attended a single class on this matter, nor had I done any of the homework. The class is usually math (the teacher manifests herself as my seventh grade pre-alg teacher), and the thought that runs through my mind is that I am utterly unable to perform Laplacian transforms (a concept I "learned" -- but not really -- in my freshman year in college). And I get scared that I'm about to fail the exam.

At some other point -- usually in the same dream -- I realize that I have a history class on Wednesday afternoons which I have also never attended. (It's always history. I never was a strong history student, which I suppose is why I never attended the class in this dream.) In my dream I make a mental note to myself to go to the Registrar's office after failing the math exam to see if I am in fact still enrolled in this history class, and take steps to drop it if I am in fact enrolled.

Strangely enough, the exam anxiety dreams never manifest themselves as something important in my current, "adult" life, like the bar exam or something.

All I can say is, I'm glad i never have to take another exam ever again, especially in classes like math (which I actually did well in in high school) and history (which I did not do so well in). The dreams ... well, they can just keep coming.