*SERIOUSLY*?! in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

Not sure if today is going to be a “List Entry” kind of day or not but at least to start it off.....

(1) Last night, Wife and I were watching an NCIS episode from Season 9. A criminal had placed a piece of evidence in a corpse… the corpse being of a person that had died 10 years ago. My mind instantly tries to weigh Criminal Law, investigation, and laws regarding the exhumation and treatment of the deceased. And I can’t help but think… THIS is why I wish I could find a mentor that was a friend. So I could ask questions of protocol, evidence, and law of both a professional necessity and a personal curiosity. Because I got into law because it is the second most powerful Man Made force in the world. The first: Money. The second: the laws and rules that are enforced in a society. And… how the law works fascinates me! I want to know, I want to master, I want to embrace… meanwhile, I’m stuck with a “mentor” that couldn’t give a rats ass about much of anything. The good news, I suppose, is that I am exhausting avenues to find a mentor. But I’m also exhausting avenues to find a new job in a community that isn’t desperately trying to eliminate itself. So… there’s that.

(2) OH… SPEAKING of the community… “the case”… the case wherein a Police Officer is a defendant… we look like assholes. Timeline: Friday… special investigators take over the case.... Monday… special prosecutors officially start the case… that weekend my boss and I get harassing phone calls from County Board of Supervisors… the next weekend the alleged victim starts talking to the press! Even though my office helped stash her in another state with family for her protection… she is on the phone with the local radio station talking and talking and talking. When we can’t secure our witnesses or victims… God we look like bumbling amateurish assholes. And therein lies the big “fuck you” to me… because even though I didn’t know ANYTHING about the victim until after all of this… it still falls onto Up North County Attorney’s Office… of which I am one of TWO… and soon to be one of ONE. So my boss’ epic failures will come back onto me. GRowl! Bah. Certainly not going to help me escape this wasteland.

(3) Openly acknowledging that this is not unique to me but… Does anyone else think that life is too short to wake up every day hating where you spend your time? Obviously, this is something I keep whinging on about. And obviously, it is something that I keep trying to deal with. But seriously. When I wake up… immediately think “Dear God, no! I don’t want to go to that place!” that is a problem. When you get in your car and sit for a beat trying to muster up the willpower to do another 8 hour day by yourself in a small room with no windows… that is a problem. When you sit down in your office chair, look around the room, and think to yourself “It isn’t healthy to hate life so much.” that is a problem. It is almost like a Horror Show. I can feel the energy completely drained from me. The will to live, whatever faint joie de vivre I may have ever felt… seriously… I’m spending considerable mental energy just willing myself to keep plugging away… keep trying to do this bullshit work and look for another job. The whole of my existence, now, seems to be dedicating my time to a place that is killing my soul while dedicating my energies to trying to get out. I just feel… particularly broken.

(4) Oh, fuck this place. Phone was lit up with messages. And, of course, Cecilia is gone (another reason last Thursday, Friday, and today suck… because even more lonely) and I’ve got… well, here is a great example…
Phone Rings!
Me: Up North County Assistant Attorney’s Office.
Caller: Hi, uh, the Auditor sent me a bill for a drainage issue; but I’d already paid a drainage bill and now they are asking me to pay another $613.
M: Oookay. Sir, this is the office of the County Attorney.
C: I know who I called. But I already paid the Auditor. What they’re doing can’t be legal.
M: How would you like me to assist?
C: Can’t you do something about it?
M: I really can’t. If you feel this is something you’d like to fight you can hire a private attorney or can call the Attorney General to file a larger complaint? (I’m offering whatever I can think of with no idea if it is a good idea).
C: So you aren’t going to do anything, huh?
M: Sir, as the Auditor is another County Department, it would be inappropriate for our offices to do anything.
C: Okay, give me the Attorney General’s Office.

So… yeah. I looked into it… County Auditor hasn’t properly dealt with Drainage Fees for the last 3 years… allowing interest to accrue on outstanding debts. The State Auditor has already been made aware. And now I have people calling me expecting me to do something… and in the alternative, going to the State’s Attorney expecting them to do something. More and more I feel this sick knot in my gut repeating the dread thought that this county will prevent me from future employment because after working in/for such a toxic and crumbling County, I’ll be seen as irrevocably tainted.

(5) How’s this for irony? I have a family member who is also an attorney. In fact, she is also a Prosecuting attorney… but out in South Dakota in a County of about 106,000 people. She recently went to a conference about “dealing with a stressful law job” and shared what she had been told (which she swears works wonders for her). (1) Spend time with friends; socializing and surrounding yourself with your support group can be essential! (2) Find something you love doing and do it every week; whether that is performing music or going to a show… just get your creativity and your passions ignited. (3) Take some time out for yourself; you can’t be everything to everyone all the time and expect to continue on that way. All good advice. And my Attorney Family Member is a lot like me (in many ways, obviously) and she said that the conference inspired her to try out for some plays… which re-energized her and brought her joy. And while I’m happy for her… it just proves why Attorneys flee from this place. Because, yeah… being an attorney (if you are going to do it right) is a stressful job. So it is important to be around friends… or people at all. And while there are many people that could find something they love doing… be it walking or cooking or knitting… anything beyond that is pretty well out of bounds here. And yes, I paint this place as rather bleak but then, so does everyone else here! Shit, one of the DHS employees is crying again because her family can’t make ends meet. And there is a LOT of that going around in the county. Everything has packed up and left this area of the State. All things considered, the more research I do… the more sense it makes. Politically, economically, etcetera.... there is no reason and no incentive to be in NW Iowa. Not even for the farmers that built this land decades ago. Largely because those farmers are dying out, defaulting, selling to large corporations and/or selling off all of their land. Auction after auction of large tracts of land out here. It is so easy to lose all sense of hope or life when surrounded by economic and spiritual death of this degree.

(6) Here’s how I spent my day:
- Dismissing Case 1 because the officer wrote an extra ticket and put someone else’s name on it. Shady doesn’t even begin to cover that bullshit.
- Dismissing Case 2 and 3 because the victims and the officer begged us to and my boss said “I don’t care what happens.”
- Answering phone calls for people upset at the Auditor
- Attempting to deal with 50+ Criminal Cases while simultaneously trying to make deadlines for 25+ Juvenile Cases (Essentially, not knowing how to do my job plus being the only person that does the job creates stress and procedural backup… imagine how bad it will be in a few months when Boss leaves)
- Sending out 4 more applications
- Mental Health Hearings that go nowhere and provide help to no one
- Printing out 54 Cases worth of Backup Paperwork to cover Cecilia’s 4 day absence
.............. so.... I’m pushing forward here… trying my best to at least do this job (in whatever way and with whatever skill I can). But… how this whole place works… how this whole place is… life is too short to be this miserable. I have to be… confident… passionate… that despite fears and worries… we’re out of here by July 2017. Omaha… 5 years of Omaha where Wife was miserable, I was unhappy about not finding work. 1 year of Tiny Town where both Wife and I are ineffably miserable, and I am essentially working entirely by myself (the reason I didn’t go into solo practice in the first place). The burden of misery is too great. I would rather destroy my pride, my dignity, and my honor by groveling to my parents after becoming destitute then stay where I feel my soul being drained away every day.