The "Vowel Song" in the Alphabet Musical We Did in First Grade Would Have Sounded Different Here...

Early on during our freshman year of college, we went to brunch in a dining hall with some friends. JH was there, and many of us got from the service line a couple of those well known round flat things usually made from a box and served in the mornings with syrup and maybe some butter and fruit. Once we sat down, someone asked JH what he called said round flat doughy breakfast item. “Oh, flayaaapjacks,” said he.

First of all, we had never heard pancakes referred to as “flapjacks.” But more shockingly, we had never heard the aah sound pronounced “aaayaaa” before. This is because we didn’t really know any Midwesterners until then, and never imagined that anyone would distort the /æ/ phoneme in such a manner. (JH to this day denies this event ever happened, as if he could scrub out the history of his aaayyyaaccent the way he actually has actually (or nearly) eliminated the traces of said aaayyaaaccent.)

Now that we are spending more than just a layover in this town, we are hyper aware of the aaayyaaaccent around us. “Have you seen Baaayyaad Saayyaaanta?” one friend asked another. On the local news yesterday, a small plane crashed into a local gym, and one resident said, “I caayyaan’t believe no one was hurt.”

Our cousins in London and India will tell you that we tend to adopt the accent of those around us when speaking, so we are quite fearful for what we will sound like by the end of this week, and more fearful for what we might sound like after we come back from our travels and live here for a whole year. Also, our own last name contains an /æ/ in the first syllable, so when we start introducing ourselves with the aaayyyaaa distortion, please send help.

We Will FINALLY Have a Dishwasher! Our Un-moisturized Dry Hands Thank Us.

Apartment hunting in Chicago already seems a lot easier than New York. Not that we would really know what apartment hunting in New York is like, since we have actually never really done it. Right after college, we went traveling around the world for three months (just like this three months except less singing without musical accompaniment) and left our roommate EKK to do all the work. When we returned, we were all, "so EKK, what is the deal," and she rolled her eyes and told us where (and with whom) we were going to live. (Thanks EKK!) When, three years later, we moved to the UES of Manhattan, the apartment was already occupied by our sister, so...we already knew where it was. That said, we have heard many of you incessantly complain about apartment hunting and are besties with a v. prominent New York broker so we can only imagine the headaches and heartaches the process causes.

Anyway, the first thing is that apparently the landlords here pay brokers' fees, so it's already a win. Second, instead of walking around the City all day or shoving to get cabs, you get driven around in the broker's SUV. Third, THESE APARTMENTS ARE HUGE. I mean, there was one giant duplex that I couldn't furnish if I tried WITH an outdoor deck and working fireplace. Why did we slave away in NYC all this time? OUTDOOR DECK PEOPLE!! WORKING FIREPLACE! Can you imagine turning a place down because it's too BIG? We did that yesterday.

However, our main concern about apartments, we have realized, is how long we will have to be outside before getting on a train or bus during the months of January-March and November-December. As some of you may know, we are not a creature of the cold and so our very survival here is at stake. Apparently, though, anything goes here with respect to winter coats, we we are totally going to get that down one with the hood that goes down to one's ankles that we have yet to see worn by a man, gay or straight.

But maybe New York transplants here are the trendsetters? We can hope.

We Had Alicia and Jay-Z's "New York" Stuck in Our Head All Day but Now We Must Move On to Either Chicago the Band or Chicago the Musical.

Well, since we are now jobless for a fixed three-month period, we have decided to put the fun back in funemployment and, yes, you guessed it, BLOG AGAIN! We know you have been waiting for this day for months, and it is now upon us, Praise Xenu.

Right now we are at a Chicago coffee shop at a communal table with no straight people and no one not wearing cute eyewear or using a Macbook Pro. Put another way, there are 5 gays at this table and all of us have adorable glasses. Yes, this includes us, who, after months of staring at Westlaw.com all day has developed a slight near-sightedness. We often longed for the day we would need glasses because we imagined we’d look cute and trendy in them, and now that day has come, and we must say, we were right, we do in fact look cute and trendy in them. We thought about getting Brad G type glasses, but settled on some rather severe women’s frames instead from the v. cheap but v. trendy Warby Parker. Now people take us seriously as a lawyer, but that perceived seriousness is counterbalanced by the fact that we are not presently employed or in any way involved with the law. Also, we are constantly cleaning these things, so after a few more smudges we may start to regret this whole Clark Kent transformation. But for now, we can read things far away and see with clarity, and take them off slowly for dramatic effect, so there.

Anyway, many of you may have heard us incessantly talking about our travel plans and imminent move to Chicago for the year of 2011, and now instead of hearing us yap about it, you can silently read about it on a daily basis as we document our adventures in Colombia, Peru, London and India, and our eventual transition to this windy City.

This week will involve some apartment hunting and getting to know the various neighborhoods. For example, we already have learned where Oprah's apt(s) are, and we have told our broker that we want to live in one of her guest rooms so we can ensure our receipt of tickets for the FAREWELL SEASON and finally meet Nate B. We will keep you posted!

Until then,

xoxo

Fishwatch

My Voice for The Voice...

An audio file of me singing the solo and trio of New Hymn by James Taylor, a cappella...

Pick me, pick me!

It Hurts Our Liver to Even Write This...

Since we last spoke, we have (1) run a half marathon, (2) retaken to the bottle, and (3) welcomed a new family member in the world. Each in turn, people, please have patience.

(1) The Half Thon was a very fun experience, we hope to recreate it at some point, or move on the the full one. After reflecting on this event and the "sprint" triathlon we did a few years ago (half the olympic distance), we are beginning to think maybe we are best suited for half things since they sound really hard ("oooohhh, a triathlon," and "ahhhhhhh - a Marathon!"), but really only half the effort goes into it. But maybe it's time we undertook the whole thing, at the very least, just for shirts to wear later. We'd also like to give a shout out to our dad who also ran the race and did very well.

(2) Since the half-thon is over, our half (or fully) dumb idea to give up booze during training has ended. Since the race was a week ago, we have obviously been out drinking 7 times, wanted to die the morning after at least 6 of them, and have seriously considered going back to train for something if only to be spared this horrible feeling in our heads, stomachs, and elbows. We started off with beer with meals, and graduated to wine after work, but this weekend it was all standards and class thrown aside, and we went for the $2 mojitos and $4 well drinks on Friday and (free) watermelon gin fizzes on someone's roof the next day. Our liver was not ready for these kinds of things and now hates us.

(3) Our cousin had a baby! She is so cute, we die, and now want 1209382 babies of our own asap. Baby daddies out there - call us!


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It's Offish Y'all!

Today we were sworn in to the Bar, which for all you non-lawyers means we can now be disbarred for co-mingling funds, stealing other people's money, or otherwise being a horrible human being.

Yesterday was our "interview," which consisted of the following:

Interviewer: So, tell me you have a job.
FW: Praise Xenu, we do.
Interviewer: Oh, I see you went to Y.U. for undergrad. Do you know Guido Calabresi?
FW: Judge Calabresi? Um...not personally, no.
Interviewer: Did you know he was Jewish?
FW: Hm, we did not.
Interviewer: With a name like Guido, who would've thought, huh?
FW: Yes, that is interesting.
Interviewer: Do you have any unpaid parking tickets?
FW: No. We can barely afford a bike, and you expect us to have a car?
Interviewer: Welcome to the profession. Good luck to you.

And that was that.

Today we sat through a 2 hour orientation, which talked all about how sucky being a young lawyer is, but that you should remember not to hit reply all by accident when making fun of someone at your place of employment. Also, if you are drinking before your court appearances, you likely have a problem and should seek help. If only.

And then we went up to the courhouse to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of New York State. And we didn't mess up, unlike someone else we know. And then we had our second shake shack burger of the week.

So there it is folks, we are now officially Fishwatch, Esq. It has been a long journey to get to this point, so we'd like to give a shoutout to all those who made it possible, and to our reader(ship), who has been cheering us along on the journey.

Crying in the Rain

When we arose yesterday morning, we were excited and ready to go for our 10K race in The Central Park as part of our half-thon training program (which we made up ourselves, so it's nothing official or even practical, but that's ok). Instead of looking out of the window, we instead relied on people's facebook updates to inform us that it was in fact raining, and then checked the weather on the internets only to learn that it was in fact raining and would continue to do so all morning. "We can deal with a little rain," we told ourselves as we put on a cap and some water-resistant outer layers.

Well not only was it raining, but it was in fact freezing as well, but we were compelled to continue on to the start at the southwest corner of the park b/c all these people from our neighborhood were also en route (you can always pick out the race go-ers on the UES on weekend mornings, they have the same look on their face as we do -- the one that says, "this seemed like a good idea when I signed up for it, but I would really rather be in bed"). Anyway, we get on the cross-town bus and make it to the registration booth, near which, soaked bagpipers were playing tunes in honor of the "Scotland" theme of the race, which we guess someone took a little too far given the conditions. After standing in mud to get our free t-shirt, we honestly thought long and hard about going home and back to bed now that we had received our swag, but we ran into some friends who told us that they would laugh at us if we did that and who pointed out that we were already soaked, so who cares. We caved, and proceeded to run the 10K, looking absolutely ridiculous with a free Scotland themed poncho on, but ended up not feeling all that bad about it.

Except when the "cool down" period began and we were litterally shivering, and then picked up our bag which was now soaked and covered in mud, and the color of which bled into our new Scotland Run t-shirt, which is unsalvageable now. Also, we are sure the pneumonia is setting in about now, despite our taking 2 Airbornes and 1 Emergen-C's yesterday, but that is the price one must pay, we guess, to be able to update their "status updates" about how athletic, and thus desireable, they are.

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