Like most people in my idiotic generation, the first thing I did after my breakup was change my facebook relationship status to ‘Single’. A few hours after the change, I received a how-you-doin’ message from a former high-school love interest. Well, at least I was interested. She was a Freshman and I was a Senior – I think the age gap prevented her from taking my advances seriously – at least that’s what I told myself at the time.

The girl, Naomi, is now a Senior at Penn and the daughter of an old family friend. My dad actually dated her mom (the family friend) when they were teenagers, and though there is absolutely no chance Naomi is my half-sister, simply having to consider the possibility adds some weirdness to the situation.

Anyways, after a few facebook emails, we scheduled a meetup. We were meeting for dinner and drinks, but it wasn’t entirely clear that the event was of a romantic nature, that is until she showed up in a cocktail dress. I felt pretty stupid in my jeans and tshirt.

The date went well. She is almost assuredly more intelligent than me but she still deferred to me regularly during the night – which was neat. I told her about the big case and my thoughts on opening my own firm. She’s planning to get her Master’s and/or PhD at one of the local universities. We both share a dislike foir the real world and jokingly made plans to run off to the Caribbean once we pay off our student loans.

I got a frustrating kiss on the cheek at the end of the date but by the time I got back to my place I had a facebook message saying, “I SHOULD HAVE REALLY KISSED YOU, NEXT TIME?”

And Val, if you read this, die.

An unrelenting cough recently forced my grandmother to have a chest x-ray, a procedure revealed the physician’s worst fears – fully metastasized cancer. One of her first acts upon the discovery of this illness was to call her attorney grandson (that would be me) and ask for a will. After a few conversations, I drafted a living trust that should preserve both my grandmother’s assets and her post-life wishes.

Though the experience was necessarily tear-inducing, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy the work. I enjoyed my Wills and Trusts class in law school but I’ve never seriously considered doing probate work as a career. I’ve begun to toy around with the idea of opening my own probate shop once I get my commission for the big case.

A few of you have emailed in asking what happens if I get fired or quit before the conclusion of the case. Every attorney at the firm has a clause in their contract that provides for a very slightly reduced commission on any case that remains with the firm. I know of one jr. attorney that attempted to take his cases with him to another personal injury firm but the last time I spoke with him, he told me that it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Another recurring email involves whether or not I could have taken the case to another firm. Unfortunately, the answer is undoubtedly yes – and I’ve spent more than a few nights thinking about “what could have been.” In the heat of the moment I never even considered it. I have little doubt that another firm would have let me keep 10-20% of the case simply for the referral.

All of that said, things are going well at work. There was a moment last week where it seemed like the big case was going to settle ($5M+), but the insurance company backed out less than 24 hours before the scheduled paper-signing meeting. The firm is confident that the insurance company is simply posturing and the settlement is only a few months away.

The client (father + husband) in the big case has been in the office with some frequency, which is actually pretty difficult to deal with as he is still deep in his mourning. He seems to have been truly in love with his family and as terrible as it sounds, this is something I use to reassure myself anytime I start to doubt the recent breakup with Val. I’m confident that, if Val was to die tomorrow, I would be completely over it pretty quickly.

This post is pretty scattered, and for that I apologize. I have a two more topical posts planned for this week – one about the girl I went out with over the weekend, and the other about an associate at the firm. Check back soon.

Things I have been able to do since losing the girlfriend:

• Eat at Hooters. Wing snobs get all pissy whenever I say that Hooters has my favorite wings, but I love those little deep-fried sauce-covered bastards. My ex got so pissy and insecure when I ventured over there that I had completely removed Hooters from my rotation.

• Watch porn. The ex was a bit of a prude in this department. I used to ‘take care of myself’ in the shower while I thought about random sexy things. Now my imagination has taken a vacation…

• Randomly go to a bar. The ex had grown to expect my arrival 30-50 minutes after I was off and would get lonely and insecure if i was more than a handful of minutes late. Now, if the mood strikes, I grab a beer or two after work. Say what you will about bar-folk, the crowd at my nearby bar is collegial and fun. I’ve even had some success at the nightly dart tournaments (first prize being a $50 tab).

• Let my bedroom get messy. Who really minds a few days worth of dry cleaning sitting on the floor? The ex was insane about having a perfectly clean bedroom before going to bed. Drove me mad.

• Waste time. I don’t mean going to the bar or anything similar – I mean lying around on a Saturday morning watching Nickelodeon. The ‘big’ thing I did this Saturday was spend three hours ‘pwning some noobs’ at Team Fortress 2. (I also ordered a large pizza.)

• Not have to constantly worry about someone else’s feelings. I hated having to deal with my ex’s hurt feelings whenever I would do something like “sound angry” or watch one of ‘our’ tv shows without her.

I don’t mean this post to sound as though I had no feelings for Val. We had a great run and a ton of fun. I won’t say that any guy would be lucky to have her as she is/was a royal pain in the ass. I would lay great odds that she is going to find some successful, minuscule guy that doesn’t mind her being a rancid, self-absorbed bitch and marry him.

7:00 AM

There was no occasion to be celebrated on the day yet Val woke me up with eggs and toast. I can’t even describe how awesome it made me feel. In fact it made me feel so great, I found the ring I have been storing in my closet for the past few months, and I proposed. She said yes, we made love, shared the last few pieces of bacon, and I headed to work.

9:00 AM

I don’t know what made me think that it would be a good idea to go to work. My mind was on my pending nuptials and not on signing up clients. The more I worked, the larger the knot in my stomach grew.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love Val, it was that I didn’t want to love Val. Less than five hours after I proposed, I was ready to break it off.

12:00 PM

I ate lunch alone (though I’m still hanging out with the douchebags). I felt incredibly stupid for proposing. In search of vindication, I stole an idea from my favorite Boy Meets World episode and made a [mental] pro/con list.

Too mean? I think it all stems from the first pro/con. In high school, I never understood the ‘love’ but not ‘like’ thing but I guess it’s just something that happens when you spend a ton of time with someone. I have lots of feelings for Val (love?), but I’m growing to dislike her. Those idiosyncrasies that seemed cute in the beginning are now irritating. Spending time with her is a chore.

4:00 PM

I said I had an optometrist appointment and left early. I rushed back to the apartment, hoping to find Val and discuss the situation. Fortunately, as I hadn’t really prepared for the talk, she wasn’t at home. I spent the next four hours crafting my un-proposal.

8:00 PM

I was wasting time on the internet when she walked in. She had been over at her parents’ showing them the ring (sigh). We talked for about an hour, it wasn’t hard convincing her that I was a loser and she deserved better, she gave me back the ring. I nearly stopped her as she walked out of the door but didn’t.

So I’m single again. It doesn’t feel as great as I thought it would.