Danielle On Being A Woman

I have a vagina. Yep, it's true...approximately 12 times a year my uterus pumps my body with an excessive amount of estrogen that makes me irritable, cranky, and overly emotional all because I am a woman. The question is, however, what does having a second X chromisome mean when it comes to where I fit in society? Aside from the biology, I am a petite brunette with a young face that suggest I am more angelic than I most likely am. I love to cook, clean, shop, sing, play piano, taste wines, travel, decorate, etc., etc., etc. On the other hand, I love sports...I like to play them and watch them and I have a competitive aggressiveness that can get me into trouble. I shoot guns, hunt, play video games, drive fast (and carelessly according to many), fish, and finally...I study law. Law is a man's world and lately I have wondered how I am going to fit into it.

A few weeks ago I competed in what is called Moot Court. My Canadian partner and I did very well finishing in the top four teams and just a few points away from the finals which are argued in front of the North Dakota Supreme Court. It would have been an honor to compete at that final level, but alas we did not survive the semi-finals. I was the only woman in the semi-finals. The year before the competition was won by an all-girl team. Before them, a woman hadn't won in over three years. Now, let me make clear that I am in no way suggesting that I did not make it to the finals b/c of my gender, however, when arguing my way through my rounds I began to feel that maybe I had a larger obstacle to hurdle than many of my male counterparts. My lowest scores were given to me by male judges and conversely my highest by the few female judges. When looking over the judge's comments on my score sheet, I rarely had a suggestions for improvement. I received many high marks and first place rankings, yet also some low ones. But most peculiar of all, I felt that in all honesty, I did better than my my fellow male competitors. I swear, I am not just being over confident or snooty here, I truly believe I was better. Maybe I wasn't WAY better than some, but I was compared to some others and the scores were questionable. Though I scored higher than most of them, it would only be by a point, but when one scored higher than me, it would be by several points, etc. After a couple of days of arguing (competing) and noticing this peculiar phenomenon I put my thoughts to my boyfriend and he said something that made me think. He said, " If I didn't know you, I feel that if you were to tell me something as opposed to K---(my moot court partner), I would be more likely to take him seriously than you." Now, J was not trying to be a jerk, he was being honest and the more I thought about it I realized the same was true for me. When men speak, especially professional men wearing suits, they command attention and exude authority. When I speak I may come off as any number of things but two of the more common are (1) a sweet little girl trying to look professional that you can't help but smile at or (2) a bitch. Sometimes it feels like for a woman to be considered equal to a man, she must be twice as good. Twice as good to be considered his equal! If you are merely "as good" then you are essentially inferior. This scares me as much as it angers me. If this happens even among me and my classmates who are probably some of the least discriminating due to our age, etc., how am I going to make it out there with a majority of older males?

On the other hand, I do realize that being a woman can also be very empowering. I want to discuss this further but as it is very late I will have to save that topic for my next blog...

Danielle the unexpected innkeeper.

Today I woke up to an unexpected surprise. Promptly after showering and brushing my teeth I set into my morning routine that always begins with opening the curtains in our living room. As I made my approach through the semi-darkness I was startled to find a man, a stranger, sleeping on my couch. Now, last night a few of us went out for coctails at a local watering hole and my roommate returned approximately an hour before me and politely left the door unlocked to ease my drunken entering. Little did we realize that she also eased someone else's.

After the initial lurch of my heart into my throat "reasonable Danielle" started to work her magic. "Surely," I thought as I gave the guy a good look up and down, "Roomie must have had a friend stop by and she forgot to tell me he was craashing here....Or, perhaps he's her brother....do they look related? No, damn." The guy amazingly did not look that out of place. He looked like a regular college student, not a bum off the street. He had removed his shoes, helped himself to a bottle of water from my fridge and was curled up like a baby on my couch with a blanket and pillow. Now, ironically, my roommate had just the Monday before complained how she was unable to sleep in and so I wasn't about to wake her now, besides, she would wake on her own in about half an hour. So for the next 30 minutes I continued w/ my morning routine as usual including showering, dressing, and beginning to dry my hair, but the entire time I just had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that something wasn't right. I actually sat on my floor facing the door while drying my hair so that he wouldn't walk up behind me. I continued to reason with myself that everything was okay, and that perhaps he had dropped in unexpectedly, etc. Afterall, the door had been locked when I came home (he had locked it behind himself).

Finally, after about 40 minutes my roomie awoke and I asked her about her brother or friend....she had no idea what I was talking about so I put it bluntly, "you know there's a man sleeping on our couch, right?" ("please say yes, please say yes") Roomie: "NO! Are you serious?" -Shit. I could have died. After several unsuccessful attempts to locate a few of our guy friends to come over and take care of the "problem" my roomie decided to tell the man to leave herself. I was scared as hell but she calmly woke him up, informed him we did not know him, and politely asked him to leave. The man was surprisingly cordial though obviously hung over and said he had meant to crash at his friends house. In fact, he even looked around and asked if this was it -it wasn't. Then the man left. The moral of the story is trust your instinct...and....if there is a stranger sleeping on your couch don't be afraid to awaken your roommate to ask him who he is! Afterall, this is not the Danielle Hotel and strangers do not stay free on Wednesdays!

Call me Mrs. Dalloway.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Oh! How I love this quote! Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is probably my favorite book of all time. For those who don't know, above is the first line of the book. See how she draws us in using free, indirect speech? We get into her thoughts through narrative voice. The line is so simple, yet stunning!

But seriously, this post is not meant to be a book review. Instead I am reminded of the beloved Mrs. Dalloway because she loves to throw parties, and so do I. For those who enjoy entertaining, the smiles on people's faces and comraderie of a get together is one of life's greatest satisfactions. Today, I plan a party. In fact, this will not be my best party. I kind of threw it together, but it will be fun and special none the less. I think that if I had my choice, my ultimate choice, I would throw parties for a living. Everybody loves a party and I love to plan them. Yay!

Jake the dog.

Jake! He's not a snake! He's a dog! -Jake's favorite song
I heart this old pup!

Danielle the insomniac.

Tonight is one of those nights where you lay your head down on your pillow, ready to fall asleep, and everytime your eyelids start to get heavy a wave of panic washes you from head to toe. It's really quite ridiculous because I have nothing to be panicking over...yet again maybe not. I feel like life is in fast forward. The reels are cranking by, yet at the same time I feel stuck in this world of school, friends, parties, reading and cramming my head with knowledge day in and day out. How can life move so fast and yet leave me feeling like I'm not getting anywhere?

Perhaps it is because up until this point in my life I have always been trying to get somewhere, but really have no idea what that "somewhere" entails. What I mean is, my whole life thus far as been reaching landmark after landmark: highschool graduation, college graduation, law school year one, law school year two... Boyfriends have come and gone and I've gone through career choices like they're going out of fashion, yet I keep trodding along, doing, accomplishing, proud nods and warm smiles along the way...I have played the game well.

When does it stop? When do you say, "Ok, I did it. I have arrived and I am happy?" Does that moment ever come or are we just cushioning our lives in order to get closer to that blessed utopia? I am a student and it is the only career I have ever truly known. The thought of not being a student anymore is devastatingly scary, yet I am tired. I have so much to learn and I am sure I will be a student in some form or another for the rest of my life, but how can I go through all of this work and still have no idea what I want? I'm not even sure I feel any closer to that answer than I did a few years ago.

Maybe what I am learning is that you just have to pick something and go with it. I clearly have chosen to be a lawyer, therefore, I will finish law school, clerk in the summers, take the bar, and then become a practicing attorney. It is just one more hurdle to cross, one more thing to accomplish and at minimum I am guaranteed a few more proud nods and warm smiles. But then what? Marriage? Children? Am I then destined to be the cliche career mother endlessly struggling to balance her family and her work? Is that what I am to settle for? The funny thing is I can't even imagine what else there is that I would want instead. Life without marriage seems lonely and I could be missing out on the greatest miracle in the world by choosing not to have children. In the end I guess the question is: what will make me happy? In the end I guess that is the question for all of us. Let me know if you've figured it out. Maybe now that I have written all this silly stuff down I will finally be able to fall asleep. I will try and leave these thoughts here tonight, perhaps my answers will arrive in the morning.