level up

[raven]

Well. Well, you guys, it's been five years and it's been so much work and it's been so much crying, but this is it: I am a qualified lawyer now.

(Around mid-afternoon a whole bunch of people I like congregated around my desk unexpectedly, and after a bit my supervisor emerged from his office with a wrapped wedding present and card for me. He had been asked to make a presentation speech, he said. I may have said before that as well as being the gentlest human being on this earth he's also the shyest person I know who has ever got up to address the Court of Appeal. After some throat-clearing, he said, "Iona is very calm about qualification and very calm about her wedding. She has been very calm when faced with sinking fishing boats and people threatening to shoot each other and court ushers urinating in public. She is a very calm litigator."

I said, "Thank you", unwrapped my presents and got covered in glitter and tried not to cry and realised I wasn't wearing any shoes and then got flustered and had to sit down for a while after that.

(I had a job interview today, as well; when asked I said, "I am a litigator" - and my interviewer grinned, hissed and made the sign of the cross, and I laughed a lot. This is who I am; this is mine. )

Real life resumes on Monday. In the meantime, tomorrow I sleep in, go for a walk in the sunshine, write stories. If you would like a story, and I hope you would, leave me a prompt. Clichés, tropes and AUs a plus. Or name a character and I'll tell you about their fears/dysfunctions/hang-ups. Or something they did that took five years and more hard work than they thought possible, but somehow, here they are - here they are.

Comments

[musesfool]

Yay! Congratulations!

How about crossovers? CJ Cregg's meeting with Margaret Houlihan?

[raven]

(thank you very much!)

Round about the time CJ realised she was going to be White House press secretary for a president who, in the best-case scenario, was going to be censured by Congress or, at worst, be impeached, she took up smoking again, stealing her cigarettes from Bonnie and finally giving up and buying her own. She hid them in her purse for a while then stopped doing that - they're all in this together, waiting for the fall.

She's outside now, smoking efficiently, looking out at the smoggy sky when she hears the rattle of the door beside her. She says, "Toby, I will be back in five minutes, okay" - which isn't all that professional, and she can't quite remember the whole long name of the benefit they're at, something about honouring DC community organisers or some kind of thing and that's not very professional either, but neither is lying to the whole electorate and your senior staff. CJ didn't get any sleep last night.

"Sorry," says a warm, low, definitely female voice. "I'm not who you wanted."

CJ turns around and breathes out apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean - I didn't really want it to be Toby, anyway."

The woman laughs and comes closer, and she's maybe seventy-five years old and she is, CJ realises, entirely too late, one of the community organisers they're here to honour. CJ is opening her mouth to apologise again, and this time do it better, when the woman says: "Can I have one of those?"

CJ blinks and hands over the cigarette. "Sure, uh..."

It's too dark to read the name badge. The woman lights up, and holds out her hand. "Margaret Houlihan. Call me Margaret. And you are?"

"CJ," CJ says, "Claudia Jean, actually" - and wonders why she feels the need to clarify. "Ah, I'm..."

"The White House press secretary," Margaret says calmly, "but not right now, not unless there are reporters with long lenses in the bushes that I don't know about. I'd say it's a nice night out, but it's never a nice night out in DC."

CJ, surprising herself, laughs. "I've just had a bad day. Maybe a bad week."

"Or month, or year." Margaret nods. "I know the feeling."

"Yeah." CJ sighs and lights another cigarette, blowing smoke upwards to join the rest of the smog. The salient information from her own briefing is coming back to her, slowly, and she turns. "You had lots of nights out in DC, didn't you."

Margaret laughs. "I wish it was as fun as that makes it sound. I was out on the Mall, and that was the winter."

And the summer, CJ remembers, and the spring in between - holding those banners, Say Yes to the ERA. "That must have been... hard," she says, a little uselessly.

Margaret nods. "Hard, worth doing, and ultimately pointless, as all the best things in life are."

CJ sighs, thinking of what her job is going to entail from now on. "Yeah."

"I should be getting back inside," Margaret says, gently. "Thank you for the cigarette, Ms. Cregg. Professionally speaking, of course you should give up as soon as possible, and I could show you a slideshow of your alveoli, but I don't happen to have it to hand."

"Professionally speaking..." CJ begins, and Margaret grins.

"What's a community organiser, anyway," she says, "isn't that what we all do, if we're worth anything. I'm a nurse, Ms. Cregg. These days, more of a midwife."

"A midwife?" CJ repeats, again feeling useless and tired.

"Some things take longer to be born than others," Margaret says, and smiles, softly. "Good luck."

She turns around and goes back inside, taking slow, deliberate steps. CJ reaches into her purse and puts the packet of cigarettes away. It's time to go back and start doing whatever it is they need to do, now, next, and going on.

[hedda62]

Congratulations!!

If you would like, you can write me something about Carlos and Cecil and/or Dana, and weather - actual weather, although Night Vale interpretations of weather may sneak in as you wish.

[raven]

thank you !:) this one got kinda long, so it's at the AO3.

[vacillating]

I would like a MASH AU/post-canon story in Hawkeye is doing a PhD, with a supervisor who asks impossible questions and makes him actually edit his work even when it's excruciatingly boring. I may be projecting.

I would also like some sort of fic or meta which explains to me what's so great about Night Vale. I've listened to the first three episodes, and I can see that they're well made; but I feel overwhelmed by a wealth of detail and also like I'm missing something. Am I missing something?

[raven]

What you're missing, unfortunately, is the remaining twenty-seven episodes. It's a slow starter and it takes time to build the architecture of the town. If you get to "Wheat and Wheat By-Products" and "A Story About You" and don't like them, then probably it's not for you.

[sabra_n]

I had a job interview today, as well; when asked I said, "I am a litigator" - and my interviewer grinned, hissed and made the sign of the cross, and I laughed a lot.

Excellent. :D And congratulations!

[raven]

Thank you so much! :)

[philomytha]

Many congratulations!

Can I tempt you with something that took Nightingale five years and a lot of hard work to achieve?

[raven]

Thank you! And you can indeed, but as three people wanted this story it got long and is on the AO3.

[isis]

Yay, you are a lawyer! I promise not to kill you first thing.

[raven]

Heee! thank you!

[starlady]

Congratulations!

[raven]

Thanks so much! :)

[marymac]

Congratulations! And I do like your interviewer! I mean, apart from the whole, clearly you are not evil/witch/etc.

Oh, also, Nightingale's hangups/fears please, should you feel inclined.

[raven]

*grins* well, litigators are kinda evil. Three (!) people wanted stories about Nightingale, so I wrote them all in one - at the AO3.

[shehasathree]

Congratulations!!

[raven]

Thank you very much!

[marginaliana]

Congratulations!!

[raven]

Thank you!

[forthwritten]

CONGRATULATIONS!

And, predictably, tell me something about Nightingale?

[raven]

et voila.

[lemon_badgeress]

oh, so many congratulations. You have worked so HARD, and I am so happy for you.

and oh yes, a story! something M*A*S*H if you feel so inclined, something with drinking in.

[lamentables]

I hope you get some sunshine today for walking in, and I wish you lots of luck with the job interviews. My goodness, but you're going for all the Big Events at once :)

[raven]

Thank you! :) And... yeah, it wasn't planned this way, and somehow September 2013 has become my month of ALL THE THINGS! I guess I don't have any time to worry about anything duly if I do it all at once!

[pearwaldorf]

Oh my goodness, so many congratulations.

If you're still taking prompts, tell me about Cecil's hangups, or alternately, a thing Carlos worked to achieve.

[bibliotropic]

Congratulations! You are the best!

[petra]

Congratulations!

[barrelofrain]

Good for you! I had a few friends take the bar this year but haven't heard back from them yet.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

A MIIIIIIIIIILLION congratulations! x

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Also. I would be delighted if you were to write more about Carlos. Beautiful, perfect Carlos, and his fears / dysfunctions / hang-ups OR something that took him a long long time to achieve OR BOTH.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I am so, so pleased for you. FIVE YEARS. <3

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

<3 <3 five years, Leigh. five years. I just can't.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Congratulations and well done! You are so very excellent, and this is great. I love your supervisor's speech (and am very impressed by your calm. Goodness). How sweet of them to get you a present.

I always like stories. Tell me about Tara Maclay, if you would.

I hope you have a lovely weekend. You deserve it.

(PS I want to share all of my law library stories with you. Expect lots of posts about it.)

[elyim.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[hrodberht.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

I want a story, but can it be the story of why the court usher was urinating in public?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I am a property litigator with about equal experience of contentious and non-contentious work. Six months ago I had the same amount of non-con experience but not nearly of the other thing, and at the beginning of March I transferred into general property, probate and trusts litigation. On my second day, my new supervisor, the same one whom I talked about above, said to me, "Look, it's a complex matter and it's a settlement hearing - all you need to do is support counsel and do us a note, and if you go instead of me it'll save costs."

I went, "Erk", and then said, no of course of course I can do it while inside my head going PANIC PANIC PANIC. But anyway, I went down to the Chancery Division and met counsel, and she turned out to be very experienced and nice, and she was for our defendants - there was also counsel for the claimants and for two of the other defendants. And in we trundled, and the judge wanted to hear the barristers for the different defendants separately, so out we trundled. In, out, in out, a few times, and counsel for the child defendants was himself a child, and was white as snow when we finally finished. And he turns to me and the experienced counsel I was with, and says, "So.... did you see the court usher urinating into a jug?"

And we looked at each other and went, "WHAT?"

It seems because there was more than one defendant counsel, he got to sit in a seat that normally is unoccupied, and had a direct sight-line to where the usher was sitting. He heard the zip being undone, he said, and then saw the jug being pushed out of the way. This is while court was in session, you understand, and the usher is the only person who actually is ALLOWED TO LEAVE.

So I was like "....", but it was lunchtime, and I caught the train back to work and walked into my office. Which was occupied by my supervisor, two of my colleagues, and my secretaries, all who turned to me with enormously innocent expressions and said, "So how was your first day in court?"

(It seems counsel called home to let them know how we got on!)

[macadamanaity.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! I'm so proud!

As a prompt if you so choose -- in honour of today, M*A*S*H + lawyers

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! That's marvelous news.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)