06.29
What I’m looking for: Looking for a room to rent (or an affordable studio or one bedroom apartment) in the OKC Metro area. Would prefer it be located within a couple of miles of either the OU campus area of Norman or the Paseo area of Oklahoma City.
The place must be pet-friendly as I have a very sweet 40 lb. lab mix who would be living with me. I’m pretty laid back and also will be gone a lot with work (1-2 weeks per month is pretty typical — and don’t worry, my dog either comes with me or stays at a kennel when I travel)
I’m a lower-income activist attorney so rent must be reasonable. No more than $500/month including utilities.
Read on for friends who want to know what this is about:
Life is hard.
Pretty much everyone knows this, but it’s becoming clearer to me of late. I love parts of my job a great deal, other parts leave much to be desired. The biggie though is that it is hard to maintain balance and have a normal non-working life when you are on the road all of the time.
I love my home (the farm at Pine Ridge that I talk about some on here), but it is pretty far off the beaten path. It’s close to Ft. Sill which is nice (30 minutes but 45 minutes or so due to the roads) but is 1-1/2 hours away from my church, the quaker meeting I like to attend, good law libraries, and most of the OK peace community that I need to connect with pretty often. And certainly it is a long ways from any kind of social life that I feel accepted in.
The problem is that I love the farm and want it to be a big part of my life. I love the peace and quiet of the place and I love keeping a family connection to this very dear bit of land.
The other issue though is beyond the farm. I’m gone a lot. Some recent months I’ve actually spent more of the month in motel rooms (or camping while on the road) than I have at home. I enjoy traveling but also know I can’t travel like this for ever. It is just too much.
So, after a lot of conversations with friends and whatnot, I’ve decided that I’m going to do a few things to regain some sanity in my life.
1. I’m going to refocus my law practice. With the exception of important resistance cases (and of course cases I’ve already committed to), I’m only going to be taking cases from this region: Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Colorado.
2. I will start taking more cases from other branches (mostly Air Force) if they are close to home. And to make ends meet, I’ll take more full-price military criminal cases (mostly drug cases).
3. I’m especially going to focus my energy and attention on Fort Hood. I have a tremendous network of support there through the Under the Hood GI Coffee house, and Ft. Hood is base that is frequently deployed. (thankfully I just found a friend in the area who will rent me a room there in Killeen for the cheap!)
4. I’m going to treat the farm as a retreat (and for storage), but find a place in cool part of the OKC metro to live in. And once I get a place in OKC, I’m going to get involved with purely fun things like good music, good art, and of course good drink (maybe even start homebrewing beer, something I’ve always wanted to do)
5. Once I’m back in the OKC metro, I’m going to start seeing my counselor regularly again. I miss seeing her and I think it will help me to maintain some level of balance in my life.
Anyway that’s the plan for now. If you know of a good place in OKC or Norman to rent, please let me know.