Cash on the table, sir in Book One: The Not So Daily Briefs 2014

Oh I am glad that work week is finished! We’ll see how bad the rest of the month is but… glad to be done! I only had court 3 days this week due to Veteran’s Day… but not only does the holiday screw with how many defendants we see every day… I got all three Numbers Judges back-to-back-to-back. A Numbers Judge is a judge who assigns every criminal defendant to a program. As I work in Corrections: Programs Division… this is excellent for our numbers but terrible for our labor. Traditionally, I’m home from work anywhere between 3pm and 5pm. This week- I think the earliest I got home on a court day was 6. So… yeah, glad that’s over with.

However, the strange insomnia is kicking my ass. I’ve been having a hell of a time going to sleep… this last week, on average I finally dozed off around 6am to grab only a few hours before time to wake up. However, in an interesting twist- that insomnia resulted in a few things.

First, it let me play Destiny with one of my absolute closest friends who commonly suffers from traditional insomnia. He was one of the few of our group to pass the bar exam on the first attempt, but he is having a hell of a time finding work. He’s bright, talented, young, and hungry to make an impact… and looking for work in the geographic areas where my wife and I have the greatest influence… but between the three of us, we could not find anything. So… he’s started doing what a lot of young attorneys have been forced to do… and hope it works out. As a lot of older attorneys are NOT retiring; many of the young attorneys are essentially having to volunteer their services… work for free… to try to build the supervising attorney’s trust so that… should a job become available- they’ll be first in line for it. It is risky and does nothing for the student loans… but a lot of people have been forced into that position.

Second, the insomnia inspired me to take a quick look at the Legal Hire board my law school just barely keeps updated. THAT NIGHT a perfect opportunity had just been posted. The job is back in my hometown… which is where the wife wants to move back to, where I still have a lot of friends, where my parents and only surviving grandparent live, and within spitting distance of my brother, SIL, and niece. Plus- it is a “City Attorney” position… which is like a County Attorney but a little less responsibility, lol. AND the starting salary is $93k!! That starting salary is lightyears ahead of anything I was imagining. But of course- there is an issue. The same issue all of my peers have been facing::: “5-7 years past experience preferred.” So… I am not going to get my hopes up at all… but I’m still going to apply. I mean… the kind of job I want, at the location I want, for a starting salary higher than I want… I would be mad to not at least try for the longshot!

Finally, in completely different news (and, perhaps, a bit TMI)…
Things with the wife have been going… mostly better. We aren’t arguing as much, we aren’t actively ignoring each other… so far we’ve found a good balance for surviving the nightmare that is her work life during holidays. But… of course… she is still quite avoidant of any physical contact or physical intimacy. For the most part… she’s okay with hugs again, so I’m trying to grab those when I can without going overboard with it. But… anything and everything else is still rare to extinct. And with my wife’s days off coinciding with the days in the week when I’m not in court… while we are spending more quality time together; it puts me in a position where… all of that no-physical-interaction kind of build up- gets problematic… and my weekends require that I seize the opportunity where she is at work to take care of that issue. However, I also prefer spending my weekends doing the things around the house that fall through the cracks. Ounce of prevention vs. Pound of cure; and all that. So… like today for example… I have about 5 things I want to do around the house; but because of the insomnia- I feel dead; however, because of the insomnia I refuse to take a nap as that may make it more difficult to sleep tonight; however, I also need to take advantage of this time my wife is out of the house to “do that which she will not” so to speak. It just… it feels like my weekends go by super fast now because of trying to (1) Be Good Husband; (2) Accept that I need to take care of my own issues from time to time; and (3) deal with anything else that happens.

PS: Between the snow, the cold, and my physical issues (pain, itchy, dreadfully tired, and a bit pent up… it is really hard to get motivated to get to my Honey-Do List!

Last updated November 15, 2014