304 in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it but… I am going to TRY not to talk politics today. It is destroying me. Especially the fact that President Trump is not sleeping (as we know he doesn’t) and (instead of thinking about his job or how to improve the country) he is thinking still about his “enemies.” (Check twitter around 3, 4, 5, and 6 on any given day.) BUT I’m going to try not to talk politics because I haven’t been sleeping.

Seriously. Last night… get in bed with wife around 11:40 p.m. In bed, not able to sleep, until 3 a.m. Get up, have a glass of water, do some body stretches, and nothing. Got back in bed around 6 a.m. Got up around 8. Two hours of sleep. Light sleep, I was snoring “too loudly” so Wife woke me up to tell me to stop snoring.

Then I came to work. It is a Wednesday so… something to do? No. Not really. I have a mental health hearing in the afternoon. A dedicated Meth User who does not present as a mental health case; but his meth use has burned his brains out to the point where his “normal” presents as schizo-typical with paranoia. On Saturday, he wandered into someone’s house (scaring the crap out of them) and when the person engaged the man… the man said that there were bugs all over his place and even one on him. And it wasn’t insects; he was referring to actual listening devices. We sent him to a psychiatrist in November. The psychiatrist said the problem was drug related so he wasn’t going to deal with it. So we sent the guy to a drug rehab facility and the facility says “If he tells us he’s stopped using, there is nothing we can do.” So… not exactly looking forward to that hearing.

Other than that what do I have planned for the day?

Well, I really honestly should clean my desk. I don’t want to because piles of paper everywhere look like I actually do something around here. I’m worried that if it goes back to organized and clean that it will become far more apparent I do very little here.

I am having serious access problems to my Iowa Court Ethics Report. I have my user name, forgot my password, answer the litany of password refresh questions correctly, and then I’m kicked out of the website. I have an ethics report that must be filed by March 10 and I’d like to take care of that sooner rather than later. So that means calling the Ethics Board Heads in Des Moines and trying to discover what the issue is.

Lastly, I may spend my work day once again organizing my cases. It is like a person with four shapes… there are only so many things one can do with them. Organizing my cases again is a pointless waste of time; but it would be something to do.

After work? I am going to try to do some exercise. I tried some yesterday but it wasn’t strenuous. I’m hoping some authentic exercise may help my insomnia. After exercise will invariably come a shower. But after the shower? Ugh. At my wife’s insistence, I will be shaving my face in preparation for my interview tomorrow. I will take a photo before hand (as I always do) because many people think I look better with facial hair. My wife is not one of them. And I suspect that I would look significantly less scruffy if clean shaven. Thus, it would be better for my interview. But.... that being said… especially at my current weight… I believe that when shaved and shortened hair; I look like a fat lesbian. An overweight individual with dominant feminine features and some masculine undertones. Maybe (likely) that self-image is deeply influenced by my younger years but there you go.
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Mandatory Cracked.com share
IN THIS ARTICLE they begin by discussing Debtor’s Prisons. Trust me, as someone who currently PUTS PEOPLE THERE, that these things are very real and back with a vengeance. Honest example: lets say that you aren’t paying child support (possibly because your annual take home is $15k). The state of Iowa suspends your driver’s license. (Now making it harder to go to work to earn that $15k with which you could not afford child support). Illegal Act: as there are zero buses in Rural Iowa; you drive to the store since walking the 8 miles in winter could be dangerous. NOW WE HAVE YOU ON DRIVING UNDER SUSPENSION. The fine ranges from $250 to $1500. But if you ask for a Public Defender, we don’t have those here. So we “assign you” a Private Practice Public Defender. Then MAKE YOU pay (an admittedly reduced) fee for the privilege. On top of whatever fee you get; there is also a $60 Court Cost and a mandatory 35% surcharge on all of it. That is standard. God forbid you commit a crime that carries one or more of the 28 additional surcharges. When people ask me what I do… things like this have made me start saying: Keep poor people poor.

AND THIS ARTICLE because studies on empathy are fascinating and necessary these days.
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Ethics/Gender Relations Question:

This came to me last night in my insomnia. Wife is upset by my insomnia because (her words) “it is affecting (her) sleep as well.” I wish to share some background (that will likely be TMI) but it relates to an ethics question. Or really: Is this misogyny question.

Background Item 1) My wife has continued her “no sex, I don’t like how I look and I don’t like how you look” thing. Granted, we did “have sex” at the beginning of the year… but it was the kind where I’m half asleep, she’s all drunk, and if asked to take a polygraph, I’m not sure I can say with confidence that it actually happened. And still, that weak mostly nothing marks the extent of 2017 sex.

Background Item 2) While my wife masturbates (rarely, but it has happened) and accepts that I masturbate; she has often told me that the very thought of me masturbating is “gross” and she has requested that I make sure to do it when she is not in the house. Especially as she has been working a lot less these last several weeks… she has been in the house quite a bit recently.

Background Item 3) Dozens of research articles have been written about sex being useful (especially for men) in helping to curb stress, calm the body, and cure insomnia.

Therefore QUESTION: Am I an ass for being a little upset with wife over my insomnia? Especially when she is saying things like “Fix it because it bothers me” while simultaneously waking me up if my snoring bothers her? Because… yeah. If I can’t masturbate to sleep; and she won’t (has never) been down for a handy j; and she won’t (has never) been down for a BJ; and she won’t (rarely, if ever) have sex without being totally obliterated on alcohol… it just seems like a potential cure for insomnia (as well as the other things sex is/can be/should be) is being kept out of reach.

And I want to know if that is a misogynistic thought. The idea of “Man, if my wife had sex with me I wouldn’t have insomnia.”